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17 Apps for Perfect Photos
Romain Thuret / Florence Legrand
Updated: June 4, 2010
Updated: June 4, 2010
The iPhone's photo capabilities were once much criticised, but while the 3G S brought its share of improvements, the iPhone4 has taken Apple's handset one step further with a new and improved sensor, improved focusing, better colour reproduction and more.
However, you still have to admit advanced photo functions in the iPhone are rather thin on the ground. Thankfully, the App Store is on hand to save the day with a whole load of applications (free and paid) designed to meet each and every one of your specific needs.
So if you're looking for a photo editing app, for creative filters, for a zoom function or for fun effects, just follow our guide to find our pick of the best apps currently available.
Bear in mind that all these apps will use up your iPhone's battery power, especially seeing as you might spend quite a bit of time playing around with them.
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 To take things further This simple and easy-to-use assistant will help you touch up your photos in no time. You can choose a specific area to frame, improve the contrast, brightness and white balance, as well as rotate the picture. Just chose a photo from your library, alter it and then save it. In a couple of minutes, your photo will look totally different. It's just a shame it doesn't allow you to apply any filters (black and white, Polaroid effect and so on).  Price: £0.59Developer: MacPhun LLCIn the same section: PhotoForge / price: £1.19 |
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 Vintage photo effects Nostalgic for good old square-format Polaroids? We certainly are! With Polarize and its practical interface, it takes just 30 seconds to turn a regular looking shot - that you might have just deleted - into an old-school Polaroid with contrasted colours. Just pick a shot from your phone's library and then apply the filter. You can also shoot straight into the app. Price: Free Developer: Christopher Comair |
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Zoom and timer
Unfortunately, there's no zoom on the iPhone 3G S. However, the Genius application is on hand to help, at least in part. The touch-zoom function actually works pretty well. Make sure you don't max it out, however, as you risk spoiling the image completely. There's also a timer, which comes in handy for taking photos of you and your gang. Another good feature is that Genius reminds you of some basic rules of photography in various situations. It's just a shame that the zoom doesn't work in video mode. Price: £0.59 Developer: CodeGoo In the same section: Camera Zoom / Price: £0.59 |
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Photos from the 50s
Black and white is flattering in almost any situation. This filter gives great results too, and can add a distinctly arty touch with the right lighting. It's a shame you can't import photos from the library and make them black and white, though, as you have to shoot directly into the app. If you want to alter old shots, you can either use Black White Camera or Photo Filters. Price: £0.59 Developer: Takayuki Fukatsu In the same section: Sepia / Price: £0.59 |
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A great choice of filters
You get around 15 filters with this app, including Helga, Mono, Infrared, 1974, 1962, Lomo, FishEye (see left) and more. Some of their effects don't go as far as they could, though (with the Polaroid filter for example). Price: £1.19Developer: Nevercenter Ltd. Co. In the same section: PhotoEffect / Price: £1.19 |
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Easy and fun photomontage
The PhotoFunia website is well known, and you can now download the app free of change from the App Store. It's amusing and effective, and the results are pretty good. The idea is simple and, although perhaps not the most useful photo effects out there, they're certainly loads of fun. Simply import a photo into one of the hundreds of themes on offer and then, in the blink of an eye, see yourself appear in a Warhol, a 60s TV set or on the cover of Vogue...
Price: Free Developer: Alexey Ivanov |
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Restricted access
Organise your photos into different folders (only the paid version allows several folders). Then, you can use this app to keep certain photos in your phone's library safe from prying eyes. You can hide any personal photos away using a password-protection system. It's just a shame that the photos you put in Private Pics are not automatically removed from the library. In the same section: Encrypto, a less comprehensive folder organiser app. Price: free for the Lite version or £1.19 for the full app with access to multiple folders Developer: David Earnest |
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See yourself in 40 years' time This popular app applies a scarily realistic ageing filter to portrait photos. The results are striking, and never failed to get a reaction from our guinea pigs here in the office: 'That's scary!', they all shouted, barely able to hide their shock. And it's true that the results are quite simply terrifying. To imagine what you and your friends or family will look like in several decades' time, just select a portrait shot from the photo library in your iPhone or take one with the built-in camera. The subject must be facing the camera straight on and shouldn't be smiling, if possible. Next, the app asks you to place several markers on the portrait before it works its (evil) magic! Just look at those age spots, those wrinkles, those bags under the eyes! The resulting picture is scarily convincing! Price: £0.59 Developer: iVi & Co
In the same section: Hour Face / Price: £1.79 |
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Arty effects There's currently a very, very long list of photo effects apps in the App Store! That's no bad thing though, as they can spruce up any old, boring photo with a cool arty effect. Plus, they can sometimes transform pictures in a totally surprising manner. The Toy Camera app has several effects to choose from, including vintage, high saturation, grainy black and white, and more. It's easy to use and can give your pictures a nostalgic 35mm-style overtone that's really quite attractive. Just, choose your photo, choose a filter (or let the app pick one at random), then sit back and admire the results, wow-effect guaranteed! Price: £1.19Developer: Art & Mobile
In the same section: lo-mob / Price: £1.19 and Hipstamatic / Price: £1.19 (+ £0.59 per extra lens pack) |
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A (free) must-have The world's best-known photo editing suite was rolled out in app version a few months ago. So does it make up for the lack of photo editing tools in the iPhone? Well, yes. The app is very heavily stripped-down version of the Photoshop Elements software suite you may use on your computer. However, it does have a selection of handy functions (cropping, exposure correction, filters, etc.) for touching up pictures and then sharing them online. Photoshop or Photoforge? Although the latter has more functions it isn't free. However, we reckon it's worth the investment. Note that Photoshop also comes with 2 GB of personal online storage space. Price: FreeDeveloper: Adobe Systems
In the same section: photoForge / Price: £1.79 |
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A splash of colour Ok, yes, more filters! Here though, this app helps you create those 80s-style art-house pictures they used to sell in Athena, which were all black and white except for one eye-catching splash of colour. Now, in 2010, with a camera that's been widely criticised for its low resolution and its lack of photo editing tools, you can create this kind of picture at the push of a button. Just look how far we've come! Price: £1.19 Developer: Pocket Pixels Inc In the same section: Color Magic Deluxe / Price: £0.59
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Three colours red Filters, filters and more filters ... but this time the app's free! moreMono removes all the colour tones from your photos, leaving only the colour red behind. You can pick a photo from your album or take one straight into the app, and then watch your picture be instantly transformed into black, white and red. The spooky image that results is sure to please goths, vampires and warlords, and will bring a whole new dimension to the most run-of-the-mill pictures. The effect is currently only available for the colour red, but other versions of moreMono should be available soon. Price: FreeDeveloper: More-thing Company Ltd
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Just like film Film Lab can change any digital photo stored on your iPhone (either from an album or snapped directly in the app) into old-school silver-halide film shots. Hundreds of films are available from five brands: Fuji, Agfa, Illford, Kodak and EES. The app seeks to reproduce the effect of each film as closely as possible, with over 300 different results! You can even choose a daguerreotype effect and you can mix films together for some very surprising results. Who would have thought there could be so many different nuances of black and white? However, this huge and often surprising choice of effects is slightly spoiled by the clumsy and confusing navigation. Plus, saving high-resolution snaps (2348 x 3200 pixels) is still far too long. Price: £0.59Developer: CLBITZ Ubiquitous Communications |
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Film-style effects! Lo-mob has got to be one of the must-have apps of the moment! If we had to pick just one app from our selection, this would be it. It isn't free, but it's packed with great functions. With this app, you can take a photo, either directly in the app or from a folder, and turn it into 30 different ones! Like many of the apps in this selection, lo-mob turns run-of-the-mill photos into something more special using a range of effects. These include, frames, borders, Polaroid effect, textures (including thick, grainy paper) etc. The list of options is very long! We particularly liked the interface, which gives a preview of around 30 randomly chosen effects. You can also share pictures directly from the app via Facebook, Picasa and Twitter, or e-mail them directly to all your friends and family. Price: £1.19Developer: Aestesis |
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 Digital lomography Here's another app that's sure to please fans of 80s photography! This app rekindles the Lomo, the Soviet camera with a lens that saturated colours and made the edges of a snap look darker than the middle. And that's exactly what this app does, giving a vintage kind of effect that makes a nice change from the classic Polaroid. It's easy to use too. One downside is that extra filters come at a cost. Given that you already pay £1.19 for the app that's a little cheeky, and at £0.59 per pack, the cost could soon add up. It can't be used with photos already stored on your phone, and the image gets eaten into a fair bit around the edges. Price: £1.19Developer: Synthetic Infatuation |
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Very Low-mography
This app gives a Lomo effect (and one only) in its crudest form. You line up the shot using an old-fashioned viewfinder, tap on the screen, and then MoreLomo spits out a photo with completely messed-up colours. In practice, MoreLomo relies heavily on its grainy effect to make the photo look pleasant, but the result is often disappointing unless the photo is taken with high exposure. There are no settings available, unlike in a real Lomo, which at least let you change the aperture. It's definitely an app for use in strong, clear daylight and pretty much nothing else. Price: FreeDeveloper: More-Thing Company Limited
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Random reigns
This is one of the best-value photo editing apps for iPhone. It contains hundreds of effects and borders, multi-exposure effects and, above all, a pretty impressive random mode. Just press the red button to generate (and save as and when desired) versions of your photo made using random combinations of all the options available in the application. It's packed full of functions and is one of the most impressive photo apps on the market, especially given its low price. Picture Show does, however, have a maximum resolution (1536 x 2048 pixels) that suits the iPhone 3GS perfectly, but which is a little too meagre for the iPhone 4. An update should soon be on the way to put this right. Another small downside is that the huge range of options can be rather painstaking to browse through. Price: £0.59Developer: Graf
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